Your company culture is a meaningless platitude

You don't pick your own nickname.

You don't declare your own reputation.

You don't define your own company culture.

All of these things are object code, "compiled" by others based upon your behavior, which is the source.

What you do screams louder that what you say. Do good and you won't have to worry about what others say. That is "company culture".

I've always believed company culture comes down to 1 thing: peoples' belief about how awesome their life is going to be next month... In other words, optimism and stuff to look forward to. Whether that's fabulous wealth, fun social time with coworkers, etc-- you have to have faith that things will be awesome in the future or you start looking.

Doesn't matter how many scavenger hunts or catered lunches you have.

Of course, you can get "awesome inflation". Day 1 at Google, maybe you're blown away by the catered lunches and at-desk free pedicures. A year later, maybe not.

A company's culture matters quite a bit. Where the author makes a giant mistake, however, is in assuming that a company's culture is what it says it is.

I've worked at several organizations, and I can tell you that they definitely do have different cultures and sometimes that culture is a big contributor to success.

On a smaller scale, it's similar to the way a startup takes on the personality of its founder/s.

I read this story about Googles culture.

When Google was really young, and wasn't sure how to make money, it was hiring. What Google found was that engineers didn't care if Google was going to win or fail, they cared about culture. And Google had it in spades.

Engineers were leaving well paid safe jobs to work in Googles culture, often taking pay cuts.

Made me think how important culture really is for the very best people.

Great article Dan. Culture is such an intangible unquantifiable thing that many people overlook. While I do agree on the 4 points you mentioned I believe that alot of company culture bleeds out of the personality of the CEO. They usually set the precedent and tone especially in a small startup.

More than anything, I think that its the word "culture" that makes this all screwed up. If you have a good "culture" (in the article's sense), people will want to work there, which is a good thing. If you dont, you will have talent troubles. Therefore, culture is important.

However, culture may be the wrong term, and I am always weary about a company that trumpets their culture.

At the end of the day, I want to work someplace awesome. Call it culture or attitude, it matters.

Very, very good article. Another thing that bugs me about corp-talk is the phrases you always find on job adverts. Apparently every successful job candidate in Britain over the last two decades has had 'excellent interpersonal and communication skills.'

Great post! This part is golden: "When the company picks up your nighttime MBA, that’s a great benefit – but when Teachstreet (a company that helps people find local and online classes) gets its employees together to learn how to build kites, now that’s a quirk.  It’s not to say that corporate mandates can’t make great quirks, although the best ones often arise spontaneously from the teams themselves"

I'm looking forward to more on what in a culture can be assigned and determined proactively versus what should be left emergent...after all, the culture is a reflection of what you want to be and what you already are, right?

The meaningless platitude that management uses to describe what they aspire to have their company culture be, is a meaningless platitude.

Ancient HR policies and hokey mission statements are no match for a good NERF gun at your side.

I think company culture is what you make of it, especially in a startup. You have the ability to help shape the workplace you're in and if you don't contribute, don't complain.

For me, I want to enjoy coming to work because of two reasons: (1) Building a product that connects with me and solves a real problem (2) I enjoy working with the people I'm with. It's the sense of camaraderie you build. All that other stuff contributes to that.

You really find out what the culture is, when times are tough. When the freebies disappear, there's no chance of a raise this year, and deadlines loom - what happens? Probably too late to find out your "culture" was hedonism etc. as everyone flies out the door, resume in hand.

Medeus ex extremitus or "the ends define the middle"

What is Normal is by definition defined by what is not normal.

Side note: I think "platitude" implies "meaningless."

This thread can't be any more appropriate to my current situation at work.

We are defining our culture but not all of the employees are on the same page.

We're still trying to figure out the best way to do it. I actually do not want to try too hard to convince people to accept a particular type of culture. It's either you like it or you don't.

A company should only keep those people that fits its culture.

Excellent, excellent, excellent! Reminds me of a tweet from yesterday (http://twitter.com/scottporad/status/15799876237):

quote from @benhuh, "culture is shorthand for the attitude people have at work".

In my work experience I've noticed a positive correlation between employers that told me what their company culture was (especially via folders of documents, and wall signs) and employers that had an unpleasant, stiff, and hypocritical company culture.

The employers that didn't have an HR department, and/or didn't tell me what their culture was beforehand tended to end up having nicer cultures. Go figure.